Social media has impregnated every bit of our lives. Believe it. Or just go ahead and answer these questions below. Where do you go if you want to:

• Learn more about an individual or company?
• Watch funny videos, advertisements?
• Research to buy your laptop or cell phone
• Plan your next vacation?
• Ask specific questions about a product

If your answers have been Wikipedia, YouTube, CNet (or any other review site), Trip Advisor (or any other travel forum) and Yahoo Answers (or any other Q&A site) respectively or similar to these, then social media is already a part of your life!!

Social media is creation of information by the ‘wisdom of crowds’ in a collaborative manner

• It is about ‘democratization of media’ as no single individual owns or controls it
• It is about ‘engaging, and not enraging’, the uses
• It is about ‘them’ and not ‘you’; about speaking ‘with’, and not ‘to’ people
• It is about seeking their participation as everybody is a content creator - after all campaigns aren’t viral, people make them!!

Social media content can take different forms; including text, images, audio, and video. The various social media platforms that are currently available are blogs, wikis, discussion forums, social networking sites, video/photo sharing sites, Q&A sites, social bookmarking sites, micro blogs etc.

Advertising is not social media marketing. Not by a long stretch. There is a distinct difference between ‘broadcast’ of advertising and ‘engagement’ of conversational marketing. For a company to engage in social media, it has to start building conversations. It is no more about controlling the message or the medium but about participating in it. Because in order to influence a conversation, not only does one have to be a part of it but also understand the root of what is being said.

For a campaign to effectively use social media, it must follow these four principles.

The above principles become the eligibility criteria for a media to be qualified as social media. They set the tone of the medium. For a brand to use social media to its advantage it must participate with users in their communities, listen to what they have to say and value add to their discussions thereby raising the knowledge level of that community. Only then will it be truly qualified as having understood the medium and draw leverage for itself.

The charts below highlight the basic difference between traditional marketing and social media marketing. As there is high level of participation and interactivity, the scope of building engagement is high. That is what brands must gear towards while planning a social media campaign.

The other important difference being that there is no audience in social media. Because

• Audience is to whom you announce any activity
• Audience is to whom you talk to
• Audience is to whom you have a monologue with
• Audience is to whom you deliver your message to
• Audience is to whom you drive your point across

Mind you, this is not about semantics. It is much deeper - psychology of a person. For all these years traditional media has allowed the individual to control the message. Everything is governed, conformed to a norm, a process, a defined technique. However, in social media, there is no control - forcing the individual to be true in its approach.

Having said that, it is not about traditional marketing vs social media marketing. Social media is not an alternative to traditional media. Both will co-exist as each has its strengths. Just that marketers will have to evaluate them in their own respective ways and not through the same marketing lens

Call Windchimes for a workshop on social media and its various platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Youtube and Blogs for your employees

Read case studies of companies using social media.